Thank you.
Good afternoon, honourable members, ladies and gentlemen.
I'm Mark Kirby, president and CEO of the Canadian Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association. We're based in Vancouver, the traditional and unceded territory of the Coast Salish people, but I'm joining you today from Halifax, located in Mi'kma'ki, the ancestral and traditional lands of the Mi'kmaq people.
For over 30 years, CHFCA has been the voice of Canada’s world-leading hydrogen and fuel cell sector, committed to helping Canada achieve its net-zero ambitions and to growing our sector. Over the past three years, we've enjoyed unprecedented interest and growth, with good reason. I welcome the opportunity to speak with you about hydrogen. I'm sure this committee understands the critical need to achieve our net-zero 2050 goals and that clean tech is the greatest wealth creation opportunity of the 21st century.
You've heard by now that hydrogen is hot. I hope you will have had the opportunity to read NRCan’s “Hydrogen Strategy for Canada”. It's an excellent document. It outlines how hydrogen, by 2050, will be a $50-billion per year industry for Canada, with investment and economic opportunities, creating 350,000 jobs and with a reduction of 190 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent. Those are big benefits, and they're also absolutely critical if we're to have a hope of achieving our net-zero 2050 goals.
We're going to need many more clean power projects, biofuel projects, carbon capture and sequestration projects. Canada must also invest in hydrogen production, distribution, fuelling stations and applications.
Today I'd like to emphasize three key points. We recommend that Canada implement the recommendations of the hydrogen strategy and identify, at a minimum, $800 million for hydrogen in our clean energy programs, grants and contributions. At least $100 million of that should be directed towards supporting the development of hydrogen hubs.
Getting more specific, let’s talk truck drivers. The pandemic has shown how critical they are. It's a vital and growing sector, but unfortunately, its greenhouse gas emissions are significant and growing. It must decarbonize and soon.
Truck electrification can only be done through a combination of battery electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles. Together they can lower costs for truck drivers, offering lower vehicle cost, improved performance and reliability, better fleet, driver and payload efficiencies, economically sustainable infrastructure and lower fuel costs versus diesel. This is only if the appropriate supports are there, including a clean fuel standard that provides meaningful credits for both hydrogen and electricity purchases. Done right, it can actually be a business opportunity for truckers to electrify through hydrogen and, by the way, also achieve net zero. Just 10,000 trucks out of the 200,000 trucks on the roads of Ontario alone would need $2 billion per year of hydrogen, while saving those truckers money.
Similar economics apply for light-duty fleets, off-road, mining, rail, marine, aviation, as well as industrial processes like steel and chemical production, and building and industrial heating. All will decarbonize more quickly, more economically and more efficiently if they have the hydrogen choice available.
That’s why there is so much interest in hydrogen and investors are keen to build hydrogen plants, pipelines and fuelling stations. If they don't, Canada will be disadvantaged against our foreign competitors. Canada has leadership in hydrogen technologies, but we could miss out on the economic opportunity of the industry as well as miss our commitments to net zero.
Are we doing enough? We do have key policies in place, and the recent budget had significant dollars devoted to clean fuels, but there are two critical areas where Canada needs to do more.
First, clear allocations for hydrogen are needed. Unlike our international peers, the federal government is still not sending a clear message to Canadians and internationally that we are firmly in the hydrogen game. We need carve-outs for hydrogen to send a clear and unambiguous message to international investors that Canada is their choice for the world’s lowest-cost and cleanest hydrogen and that Canada is the place to deploy hydrogen vehicles, processes and applications. Hydrogen allocations totalling $800 million would put us on par with the U.S.A. and at the lower end per capita versus our European and Asian peers.
Second, and it's related, is hydrogen hubs. There is a dizzying array of funding sources that could be applied to hydrogen. They each cover one narrow aspect and are not organized and aligned. This makes it very difficult and risky for hydrogen project developers to take on projects. It also opens the risk of investment in disconnected projects that do not have sound financial underpinnings. To address this, we need specific support of at least $100 million allocated specifically for the development of hydrogen hubs. Provinces are ahead on this with Alberta, B.C., Ontario and Quebec all allocating support to hubs.
The hubs cluster multiple applications around a single, common and low-cost supply of clean hydrogen. They generate jobs and investment, provide the scale that's needed and lead to new technologies, skills training and all those things we want to see happen. By the way, they're a key part of the hydrogen strategy for Canada.
Those are the three key points: implement the recommendations of the “Hydrogen Strategy for Canada”, allocate an $800-million carve-out for hydrogen and support the development of hydrogen hubs.
Thank you very much.